Monday, September 29, 2014

Jennifer Vera's invitation is awaiting your response

 
 
Jennifer Vera would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond?
Jennifer Vera
Jennifer Vera
Founder at Vera Strategies
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Monday, September 22, 2014

Jennifer Vera's invitation is awaiting your response

 
 
Jennifer Vera would like to connect on LinkedIn. How would you like to respond?
Jennifer Vera
Jennifer Vera
Founder at Vera Strategies
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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn

 
Jennifer Vera would like to stay in touch on LinkedIn.
Jennifer Vera
Jennifer Vera
Account Executive at JPriego Communications
Greater Chicago Area
I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
- Jennifer
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

My Hands





My hand gravitates towards yours
As though you were a furnace
On the coldest day of the year

I keep my hands to myself

My body remembers you
Every cell wants to joyfully leap outside of me
My olfactory senses indulge in a familiarity
Rarely ever felt to me

I keep my body to myself

I am an energetic ball of restraint
For fear of rushing in full force
And never bouncing back
And I am terrified

I keep my energy to myself
  
A natural inclination to lay my head on your chest
Fall into an embrace like a child to a mother’s breast
Like your strong arms can hold me

I keep my head to myself

My stomach has collected more butterflies today
Than it has all year
And I like the way you look at me

I keep my heart to myself

I am laughing it off when you discuss other women
And everything in your life that doesn't include me
Using all of my will just to brush it off casually

When really I just want you to
Remember all those little things
That make up me
Like the fact that I’ll never really give up coffee
But I’ll keep trying
And my brow’s arch so slightly when I’m focusing
How I always say obscenities in Spanish
But only when I’m angry
I always laugh at my own jokes
When no one else thinks it’s funny
The way my tongue presses against my front teeth
When I’m smiling
And all I really want to do
Is lie down here with you
With my fingers caressing your face

But I keep my hands to myself

Monday, April 1, 2013

Sharing is Caring and Other Truths of a Share-able Economy



The most meaningful moments in my life spent with other people have one common thread: sharing.

I’ve been a member of the CouchSurfing community since 2007 when I started hosting strangers at my 3 bedroom apartment in Logan Square.  I opened the couch and home I shared with three roommates to these strangers and we shared moments, parties and experiences together.  I connected with people from all over the world through CouchSurfing.  We overcame language barriers together.  We shared food together, talked politics and social norms.  We cut the bullshit of every day conversation and just got to the good stuff.  We learned from each other and ultimately we changed each other slowly – each experience undid all my false perceptions of different cultures, countries or people with truth; with the expansiveness only experience can provide. 

I found out about the film: One Couch at a Time, through someone that I had the pleasure of hosting myself who is featured at some point in the film.  In the documentary, the brave Couchsurfer Extraordinaire, Alexandra, hits up 6 different continents and couchsurfs through her way through all of it.

This film was inspiring – not just to the wanderlust escape artist inside of me but also to the wide-eyed young woman full of hope in the midst of all the global and economic crises surrounding young people today. 

I remember my first job armed with so much idealism and thinking: Why are we still working this way?  Why can’t we change things?  We don’t have to do things the same way our fathers or mothers did.  We are the leaders we've been waiting for!

Then the reality of student loans and bills hits you hard – harder than it ever did for past generations and you lose hope in being able to change the status quo, but this film made me believe in possibilities again.  I don’t have to live this super sequential story board life to have everything I want.  I can have it through community, through sharing, through human connection with others.

The people are demanding transparency, environmentally friendly resources, and innovation with technology as modern-day sharing’s vehicle of choice.  Those who cannot understand this will fail.  A new age is dawning – one that will demand more from all of us.  It will demand better businesses, better neighbors, better communities, better leadership and it is now

“Opportunities thought impractical because of perceived trust barriers are now fair game.  The examples of Lending Club, Couchsurfing and Thredup show that people are engaging in intimate transactions with strangers driven by technology, new norms and need.  This is the trust frontier.  We have yet to discover how far we can push this frontier.  This is the decade when we answer the question: ‘How much can we share?’”
-Neal Gorenflo, Publisher, Shareable Magazine

I am hosting a screening of One Couch at a Time and discussion on the share-able economy on Thursday, May 16th at 6 p.m. in the South Loop.  Please email me directly if you’re interested in attending.  The screening will be free so long as you bring something to share.  Seats are limited – first come first serve.  See you on the other side of this exciting frontier!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

I'm Not Her


Bless the woman that makes you a man
Taking off your training wheels

I’m not her.

Thank that saintly patient teacher
Waiting for maturity to hit you over the head

Call me when you get there.

Luck to the woman who sees your potential
More than the reality in front of her

Send me a postcard.

Sympathy to the woman mistaking a mirage for a lagoon
Amidst the dusty sand dunes

I’m just not that thirsty.

Thank that sacrificial whore
Who let you take more than you can give

I don’t spread myself around.

I’ll be the one to let you struggle lovingly
Because I believe in you more than you do

I’ll be the only one strong enough to handle you
Because I’m strong enough to know that I don’t have to

Sunday, February 24, 2013

No More

Oaxaca, Mexico


No more maneater
No more ice queen
The resurgence of the in between

No more ardent lover
No more violent hater
All the more serene

Maybe this is called authenticity
This is a surfboard unsinking
This is what it is to own energy

She’s keeping her silence now
Less and less apt to feel the need
To fill the space

No more tough girl act; defense machinations
No more external validation
Who’s really the one keeping track?

No more drama unnecessary
No more over controlling
Live and let live; give get and give

No more people pleasing
No more overly friendly
Oh the beauty of boundaries

She’s more careful these days
She’s more thankful these days
What’s hers is hers alone

No more clinging to definitions
No more unchallenging the latest version of me
Ode to finding simplicity within complexity

It’s much less sexy
When you’re no longer the life of the party
But how enchanting to know where you’re going

No more clinging to ideals
No more holding onto all that is fluid
Finding the light and love in uncertainty

Letting the universe hold me
Surrendering
Being